mini me

If I had a daughter I would have bought this suede fringejacket at H&M for kids. Love it!
Hadde jeg hatt en datter ville jeg ha kjøpt denne semskede frynsejakken fra H&M.Herregud så søt. Nesten så jeg vurderer å kjøpe den uansett...

Which Reminds Me

Oh, if I could I would attend this awesome seminar on photography at Alt Summit.

My recent post on kiddos in the blogosphere reminded me of an awesome conference coming up this month in Salt Lake City, UT that I wish I could attend.

Every time I look over at the Alt Summit website, I drool a little bit. All of the seminars look so fascinating! What a fun way to learn new creative processes and connect with other bloggers.

Alt says about themselves: "Altitude Design Summit is the next cool thing. A conference for design-minded folks — bloggers, lifestyle sites and the companies that want to connect with them."

Are any of you lovely readers planning to attend?

If you are, you need to get to Rachel Devine and Ryan Marshall's seminar on photography (called "Getting It Right in Your Camera"), held on Thursday, January 20. Looks fantastic!

The details on Getting it Right in Your Camera (January 20, 10:30-11:30 am):
This photography panel promises brainy discussions, advice and sweet reminders (remove that lens cap, please!). Topics to be covered: Lens selection, raw vs. jpeg, sharpening your focus, white balance, using external light, pushing your ISO, being bold with your flash, aperture, shallow depth of field, and getting the most from your camera. Panelists:Ryan Marshall, Rachel Devine.

Self-portrait by Ryan Marshall of Pacing the Panic Room.

Ryan Marshall is the genius behind Pacing the Panic Room, an awesome blog about raising a family, being a dad, and documenting pregnancy. I recently posted about him here.

 

The Marshall family is a beautiful one. Meet Cole, the Littlest Buddy, and Tessa Tangerine.

Rachel Devine is a talented photographer who runs her own business and blogs about it and her three cute kids. Talk about a lady who can balance it all! She's got a super creative eye for those moments you never want to forget, like when the kids are bouncing around on the couch, looking cute in their Christmas Eve pajamas.

Self-portrait by Rachel Devine.

Photo by Rachel Devine.

You can also connect with Alt on Facebook and Twitter. Keep me posted if you attend the conference, lucky ones!

Ready for the Impossible?

 

Photo via Pennyweight.

I have a feeling 2011 is going to be an incredible year. Are you ready for it?

I'm ready for quiet moments, full skies and elaborate dreams. I plan to do plenty of yoga, healthy cooking, and reading for fun.

And I want healthy relationships -- with my Hubs, my friends, and myself -- to be at the top of the list.

Photo via Andrew + Carissa.

Photo via Atlantic Tree Fox.

Now is one of those times of year I feel pretty reflective. I find myself reminiscing about my favorite memories -- which means reliving the Big Day over and over. Anyone else wish they could enjoy their wedding day all over again just because it was so wonderful?

Before we left California, I was also helping my mom pack up a few boxes and get rid of some of my old stuff. I spent a few hours going through old papers -- birthday cards, love notes from my lunchboxes as a kid, letters from penpals, journal entries, high school essays. I found myself feeling strangely sentimental, and sad to leave my family. The cards from both of my late grandmothers almost brought a tear, and more so they have inspired new poetry.

Photo via A Desert Fete. 

Photo via Oh Happy Day!

Getting back to our wonderful little apartment has also inspired me. Hubs and I endured a particularly long and ridiculous journey home (delays at the airport, delays for our bags, delays for the cab) so we were pretty happy once we made it to our bed last night.

We spent the whole day today cleaning, organizing, and getting rid of old stuff. The perfect New Year's purge!

It felt great to free up some space and tidy up. We still have a bit to do -- and I have big plans for my own new planning schemes to keep things easy to find! 

Photo via David and Sarah.

Photo via Stephen Beadles Photography.

At the start of January, it's easy to look forward and think how lovely and open the new year is. It's just as easy to look back at the year behind us and get overwhelmed by how much we had to do to survive it.

Are you busy looking forward, or looking back?

At this very moment, I am equally at peace with my goals for the new year and my accomplishments from the past year. I feel prepared to do better, to grow, to let go. I'm as ready for the impossible as I can be.

Photo by Jose Villa.

A final quick note: I'll be featuring a new series here on Alive in the Fire very soon! It's called:

Beyond Childhood (How to Love Your Kiddos Better) 

Get excited; you're going to be seeing a lot of adorable baby pictures, parenting advice, thoughts for expectant moms-to-be, reviews of green products, and ways to make family your top priority in 2011! I hope you'll follow along and consider contributing your comments and ideas.

If you know of a mom who might want to share her story, please have her email me here: aliveinthefire at gmail dot com.

I'd also love to hear from you with ideas about:

• Family-focused companies
• Eco-friendly and green products for babies
• How to put family first
• Raising kids with love, hope and spirit
• Eating well for you and your family

Thanks and namaste!

The World's Youngest Yoga Teacher

Photo via the Daily Mail article which I discovered via F***YeahYoga.

Can you imagine teaching yoga at age six?!

I just discovered this amazing article about Shruti, the world's youngest yoga teacher. She has been teaching adults at an ashram in northern India for the last two years. Incredible!

As the article reports, 'Her trainer, Hari Chetan, 67, set up the ashram 35 years ago and as soon as little Shruti became one of his students, as a tiny four-year old, he spotted her talents." 

Photo via the Daily Mail article which I discovered via F***YeahYoga.

Major props to both Shruti and Hari for the patience, courage and energy it must take for her to teach classes (starting at 5:30am) as well as perfect all the postures she practices. The little girl has a killer scorpion pose already!


Her teacher says she's a natural, a fast learner and a perfectionist, and her students say she is extremely patient and has even helped them calm their anger. I say: amazing!

2 cool 4 school

Shoes from Lacoste, fall 2010..
skinny pants from Diesel
tank top for kids, american apparel.

Take your bad vibes and negative thoughts with you....

Do you have that one friend or relative that has nothing positive to say about anything? I know I do, that person would be my mom but I have learned to handle it so as not to let it bring me down. Don't get me wrong I am not Miss Ray of sunshine all the time but I like to be around positive upbeat people that was not the case Saturday night.

I mentioned Monday that Dan and I went to dinner Saturday night with some friends, we don't see these friends often but we do keep in touch via email. We arrived at dinner happy and full of energy I personally left exhausted and irritated.

The wife of the friend we had dinner with was pretty much a negative Nellie about everything! Kids.... negative, neighborhood they live in ...negative.......her family....negative. It was very frustrating. At one point we were discussing work and the question was raised if you were to be paid let's say 170k a year but had to work like 70 hour work weeks would you accept the job? Her eyes light up like a Christmas tree and she replied absolutely. I asked well what about when you have kids? Sure I would! She responded wouldn't you? No I replied she was shocked why not? She asked. Well there is this thing called family and I would be missing out on them; she does not have kids but they are talking about it another negative topic. She was like no way I would do it in a heartbeat her husband a huge proponent of them having a family was shocked as well. The conversation continued and at one point the wife said well you work fulltime and you must put in a lot of hours so I am curious why would you not take the job? My response was something like this.

I do work and I am in a position with a lot of responsibility but I have a strict rule that my family comes first and I make that clear to my staff, I also encourage them to think the same way. I always see work as important but it is not the be all end all; it is simply a vehicle to provide for your loved ones. I further went on to tell her that I leave the office everyday at 4pm so that I can have those precious few hours at night with my kids instead of the sitter. She scoffed and said that I could be limiting myself since I choose to leave work early. Which by the way I don't because I arrive at 7:30am. I assured her that I am one of these people who do not wear a badge of honor by being in the office 10 hours a day and that I am a huge believer in working smarter not longer.

Suddenly it hit me, not only have I had to defend my decision to not stay at home over the years; but I am now having to defend my working hours (or lack there of) outside the home. I was very frustrated add to that frustration the fact that every topic that night was one of negative comments I was done!! My thought at that moment please take your bad karma and vibes with you I don’t want them here in my happy place!!!!!!!

The work not work discussion was not an easy one and I have had plenty of family discussions both behind my back I am sure as to why I am working and the rest of my families wives don't. Because of our decision for me to work I have heard things like…. well your kids are sick all that time but that must be because they are in daycare…. or if you were home you could go to playgroups and socialize with other mothers like you... don’t you feel bad you are not the one home with your kids …..the list goes on.

I think I am doing a damn good job raising my kids; they are happy, healthy, well adjusted and well behaved kids. It really frustrates me to constantly defend my life choices to people, especially those who aren’t happy with anything in their lives. I don't ever call out others on their choices to stay home or not. I may have my feelings on the subject for certain people or situations I am aware of but I certainly would not hurt someones feelings or a friendship by forcing my views on them and it drives me nuts when people who are not in the same boat (meaning they don’t have kids) make blanket statements.

Sorry this has become more of a rant then a good blog post, please let me know your thoughts I want to hear from both sides because I think both are valid.

Super Nanny where are you????

Terrible 2's have nothing on the terrible 3's....Ok for the last couple weeks we have had issues in our house when it comes to bed time and I think they are starting to spill over into little man's over all behavior. it is so bad that I am ready to call in Supper Nanny because I feel like I'm at wits end.

My son is a night owl, unfortunately I am not nor does our schedule allow for him to be. We typically get up the kids up at 6:30am in order to leave the house by 7:15am to get him daycare and my daughter to school. We are home by 5:30pm and we do the normal eat dinner, play, have a bath and bed. I shoot for bedtime by 8pm for the kids but it never seems to be before 9. Even then it is an hour or more of "I am hungry"... "I need a glass of water" and what I like to call the power of poop! My son is potty trained with the exception of nighttime so he wears a pull up and knows that if he says he has to go poop we will take him and that means getting out of bed, hence power of poop! So by the time he finally settles down it is nearly 10pm and I know for a fact that he has been up past that but stays in his room quietly. Well now he is starting to have discipline problems at school and I am convinced it is lack of sleep. I know how I am when I have not had enough sleep. To add to this and I know this may sound selfish but I would like to have at least an hour to myself or with my husband which with a bedtime of 8pm would give me till about 9 or 9:30 ... have I mentioned before that I get up at 5am to work out??? by 9pm I am totally dragging.

So to my mom bloggy friends do you have any suggestions on how to get him to bed and keep him in bed??? If I don't hear back from you I will have no choice but to write ABC and the Super Nanny show!!!!!

Happy Valentines Day

Happy Valentines Day to all my blog friends! We won't have much going on here tonight since we are preparing for a weekend away skiing which stars tomorrow!!! Yippee!!!

This morning however we did a little V Day celebration before the kids headed to school. My daughter crawled in bed with us this am and hung out for a bit always a treat! 10 minutes later in comes my 3 year old with my $700 camera around his neck taking pictures of us. Guess he gets that from me since I am a huge picture taker. So here is a photo taken of us in bed this am.




I finally pried the camera away from him, got the kids dressed and ushered them down stairs only to find that the Valentine fairy had come and left some treats for everyone (ok not me since I was the fairy) ! My oldest squealed with delight my youngest was not impressed as he was still mad I had taken away his very expensive toy.

Lauren soon remembered that she had a few more Valentines to finish as you can see I caught her of guard while she was finishing up.

All in all a fun filled morning, I look forward to all the Valentines they will bring home and share tonight. I remember back when I was in school, I hated Valentines day because there was no rule that you had to give everyone a valentine. So it always upset me when other kids had more in their V-day box then I did.

Hugs and Kisses Happy VDay !!!

Welcome back..... and surprises galore!

Ok I am back and boy does it feel good to be home! I have a feeling this is going to be a long post because I have a lot of ground to cover so bare with me :)

I arrived home on Wednesday night, the kids were super excited to see me and I had lots of hugs and kisses from them and hubby too! Thankfully Dan was starting to get over his illness and the kids remained healthy during my absence thank goodness for small miracles.

I decided that I would work from home on Thursday so I could drop the kids off and pick them up. So I get up like any other regular work day so I can get my workout in before the tribe gets up. I go down to my workout room and what do I see!!! A brand new treadmill!!!! Talk about shocking I thought for a minute I was in the wrong house, I went bolting up the stairs and woke my husband up asking what that new treadmill was doing there?? He said he had it delivered while I was gone because he knew I wanted to vary my workouts. We have an elliptical machine that I use religiously already. Plus he said that this way we could both do a cardio workout at the same time. I think he has seen the results I have gotten (10lbs total since Jan 1st) and he doesn’t want to be shown up. So the past 2 days I have run 2 miles on it and I LOVE it. Again I have the best hubby in the world. However I did question him at length as to how much it was because I know what we paid for that elliptical 4 years ago. He said he got a great deal at Costco and it was under $1000, .and as you can see it is pretty big and pretty much gym quality. VERY COOL if you ask me!

Speaking of Costco I after I picked up my daughter from school yesterday I went there to pick a few things that I knew we needed. My daughter loves going to Costco first because you can eat your way through there and second because she loves their pizza. So as we checked out she asks me if we can sit down and eat a slice, I’m thinking man it is 2 hours till dinner time, but what the heck! So I get her a slice and if you have been there you know they aren’t small slices. Well she devoured it, and I have the picture to prove it. She is a sloppy mess but she was in heaven!

Lastly, I received a very un expected surprise this morning when I logged on to my Blogger I had a message from Melody at Pennies in my pocket I won a Custom Blog Design by RS Designs. Go check their designs they are very cool. Also be on the lookout for my new Blog design!

Well I think that about covers it! Super Bowl Sunday this weekend I can’t wait I love Super bowl munchies, the commercials oh yeah and the game :)

Long Weekend.... What long Weekend???

So it started Friday around noon, the tribe headed up to upstate NY to see my husbands parents for our "family Christmas". My husband picks me up at work and begins to tell me how pissed he is at the kids. Mind you this man who never says a cross word. When I ask why he looks at me as though I have a horn growing out of my head! What? I say, I mean I am not a mind reader! Well with that I opened the flood gates. He proceeded to tell me how the kids were not quiet during his important phone call, how hey were fighting with each other asking for food, wanting a new DVD etc. It took every ounce of willpower I had to say "well, then why did you keep them home if this call was so blessed important!" He went on for like 5 minutes all the while looking for my sympathy then his cell phone rang. As he talked I heard the ever so sweet lady on our navigation system tell him like 4 times to make a U turn when legally able to do so, I was waiting for her to tell him to get off the phone and make a *&^ing U turn but she never did, so he just kept talking and driving. When he finally finished the call we were on some back country road winding our way through MD. I was steaming because I knew we were going to get to NY at like 10pm because he was so wrapped up in his call that we were now taking the back road route to NY. He then proceeds to pick up the "I am upset with the kids conversation" where he left off. All the while are kids are sitting like angels watching a DVD and playing a video game. After he had beat that dead horse as much as he could we proceed on to other topics of conversation for the next 7 hours.

We ended up getting to NY about 9pm the kids were all pumped up to see nana and pop pop and didn't get to bed till midnight, thankfully they slept in! The next day was Christmas gifts and going into town to show off the grand kids, Sunday was more the same.

I made the mistake of trying to get on the computer at my in laws house forgetting that they still have dial up... it was painfully trying to read some of my normal blog friends sites so finally I gave up. ( I plan to catch up tonight if possible)

Last night was my 3rd night on the pull out coach in the family room, BTW it is also the location of the only TV so the house so the lucky people who sleep in that room need to wait until everyone has gotten their fill of TV for the night before they can go to sleep. Last night it was 11pm and I was tapping my toes because I wanted to get some sleep on that ever so comfortable pull out. Needless to say after 3 nights on a full size pull out (we have a king bed at home) I was ready for my own bed! I was up at 7am this morning and was showered and dressed before anyone because the thought of another minute in that bed killed me.

We started our journey home today at 10:30am I had a splitting headache and the kids were now driving me bonkers with their requests of juice boxes, new videos and snacks. We finally made it home at 5:30pm and I raced around trying to unpack, throw a load of laundry in, get ready for the week ahead and put the kids to bed. It is now 8:28 and I just realized my long weekend is GONE!!!!

It was all for a good cause he kids love to see their grandparents and they love to see them Below are some pictures, I am off in search of some peace and quiet until 5am tomorrow!

Here are the proud Grandparents


Some more candid shots of Nana and Pop pop


Finally my tribe before the ride home

Comon Sense

What a great long weekend! I was able to get all the things that I needed to get done and still have some time for me! The kids had a blast making Thanksgiving crafts and helping me decorate the house.Then the reality of work hit me Tuesday night (Monday was a holiday for me) I got up and did the normal routine.... man what a drag! Then while at work my boss asked how the kids were doing and I said good except my oldest Lauren was upset with us because no one was going to be at her thanksgiving luncheon. He replied "Well, what's holding you back" Hmm well maybe the fact that I was out of the office all last week and my desk looks like a bomb went off on it? He says "well don't say your boss wont let you go I think you should go but it is up to you just remember this when she bring it up when she is 23 that you didn't go to her school luncheon" my thought Sold! So I got up this morning and sent in my paper work for a day off only to have him return it to me saying you are working from home therefore I am not accepting this. What a freaking cool boss why can't all business people be this understanding? I mean it is simply common sense, if you show some respect and interest in your workers and their families and bend a little now and then it goes a long way. Truthfully I have gotten more done from home in 3 hours then I would have being in the office all day. The interruptions are killer! Plus I had the bonus of dropping both of my kids off at school when it started instead of dropping them at the crack of dawn! I could start to dig this work from home thing!